Stepping In
by SadieGrace
Summary: Luke and Lorelai made a mess of their relationship in season six. In the spring of 2006, the younger generation reluctantly steps into the aftermath to repair what went wrong. A post-"Partings" fix-it from the perspectives of Jess and Rory. Ignores anything after season 7 episode 1. Chapter 8: Observe and Report. Luke/Lorelai.
1. Unwelcome Home

_June, 2006_

Jess makes the drive back to Stars Hollow from Philly late one Thursday night in the middle of a late spring storm, calling himself all kinds of fool for coming all this way. He'd never admit it, but he's worried. Luke has had the annoying habit for a while now of calling precisely every seven days just to check in—to ask him mundane questions about work and survey his dietary habits. Jess had become accustomed to the brief weekly call and when it didn't come one week, he'd been surprised. When it failed to come the next week, he'd pretended he wasn't concerned. The third week, he'd picked up the phone and dialed the apartment, only to talk to the answering machine. Yesterday marked four weeks and, rather than revealing his concerns by calling someone else and checking in, he's taking a long weekend and making the three and a half hour drive to Stars Hollow to check for himself.

It's well after closing time when he pulls his car into the alley behind the diner and lets himself into the apartment, figuring Luke won't be there anyway and he'll see him in the morning.

What he finds stops him cold for a long moment.

The TV is on, late night infomercials casting blue light over the couch where Luke sits, starting morosely at the screen. Beer bottles litter the coffee table, a dozen or more of them, mostly empty. Behind him, at the end of the kitchen counter, the recycle bin is overflowing and surrounded with their cousins. One half-drunk bottle dangles from Luke's fingers.

Luke barely looks up at Jess' entrance.

"Luke!" Jess barks sharply, striding over and taking the bottle from his fingers. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothin,'" Luke replies, snatching the bottle back.

"Luke," Jess tries again, more gently this time. "What's going on? Why are you here? Where's Lorelai? Does she know you're single-handedly keeping the beer companies in business?"

"S'no Lorelai. Th's no more Lorelai." He follows that sentence up by flinging his head back against the back of the couch and draining the remaining half of the bottle's contents.

"Jeez," Jess grumbles. "Are you trying to drink yourself stupid? You guys have fought plenty of times, you'll get over it."

Luke shakes his head: exaggerated, uncoordinated sweeps of his head a back and forth.

"No more Lorelai. Ever."

Jess stills. Something in that phrase sounds a little too final.

"Luke. Are you not still engaged?"

Luke's response it to reach for a full bottle from the coffee table and twist the top off.

"Not," is all that escapes from his mouth.

Suddenly incensed, Jess takes the bottle away before Luke has done much damage to its contents. Standing, he gathers the last full bottle from the table and takes them with him. Confident that Luke is likely unable to stand long enough to come get them off the counter, he leaves them there and fills a tall glass of water for Luke. With sharp, abrupt movements, he hands Luke the glass with a curt "drink this" as he flips the TV off and grabs Luke's feet to swing them up onto the couch. "Go to sleep," he orders. In the near-darkness, he checks to ensure that Luke is curled securely on his side before he storms out of the apartment.

He's striding up the driveway of the Crap Shack almost before he knows what he's doing.

"Lorelai!" He shouts as he mounts the front steps, unheeding of anyone who might be sleeping in the house or the surrounding neighborhood. When the door opens, it's not Lorelai but Rory who steps out.

"I need to talk to your mother."

Rory folds her arms over her chest and raises her eyebrows at him. "You're not getting anywhere near my mother."

"Then maybe you can explain to me why Luke's apartment looks like the back alley of a pub right now, and he's blind drunk watching infomercials!"

"Whatever is going on with Luke doesn't concern us anymore. He made his own choices."

" _Luke_ made his choices? More like Lorelai made his choices for him. The only thing that could make Luke act like this is Lorelai. She sure as hell did something."

"If it's all my mom's doing, if this is what she wanted, why do you think I have to make sure come home every few days just to make sure she eats a decent meal once in a while?" Rory hisses at him. "Why do you think I stand outside her room every night while she cries herself to sleep and then pretends everything is fine the next day?"

Jess leans a little closer to say incredulously, "You think _Luke_ is the one that did this? He's pined after Lorelai for years before she even noticed he existed! You think he'd give up on that?"

Rory's voice is cold when she replies.

"Apparently that's how it works with the Danes men. They say they want you, but they don't really want you enough to let you into their lives. That's what the men in your family do, right? They walk away when they should stay. They think grand gestures one day make up for hurting you every other day."

Jess has to take a step back at the force of her words: "Luke's not like that! He's better than me!"

"Yeah, well, that's what we all thought," she spits, "but he seems determined to prove us wrong."

After long moments of staring at each other, the glares shift to some semblance of understanding and they both heave a tired sigh.

Lorelai chooses that moment to lean out the door. "The next movie's about to start," she tells Rory. The first thing that strikes Jess is that she seems small, fragile and shrunk. She smiles, but it looks brittle. When she sees him, she turns a cracking smile his way: "You're welcome to come in and join us." She is quiet, calm, polite. The Lorelai he knows is not quiet and calm and polite. She is all quick wit and rapid fire and grand schemes. It is this more than anything that shocks him and stops him cold.

He mumbles a "no, thanks" and watches her close the door before he turns back to Rory.

"It was that bad?"

Rory turns to look back at the front door her mother has just disappeared behind.

"It was bad, Jess."

"Hang on a minute," Rory tells him as she turns and slips through the same door. She returns a moment later and thrusts something at him.

"Since you're here," Rory says, an edge of bitterness mixed with the weariness in her voice, "you can take these back to him. He's got his own family now. He obviously doesn't want to be a part of ours anymore." In his hand he finds a manila envelope. He doesn't know the story behind one of the items in it, but there is little doubt in his mind what the tiny black box holds.

* * *

 _AN: I've always figured that for as much as she cares about Luke, and as much as she can acknowledge her mother's mistakes, Rory would still be feeling a fair amount of anger toward Luke in the aftermath of season six._

 _This is not going to be a long, drawn-out piece—I'd say it's more of a beginning than a resolution. I expect it to be maybe 6 short-ish chapters, three of which are finished already._


	2. Revelation Day

_May 22, 2006_

 _10 days previous_

April is exceptionally bright for her age, but she figures even if she weren't she could have seen the difference in her dad lately: the way he focuses on her all the more intensely—and more exclusively—than ever; the way anger always seems to be sitting just below his smile, in the tension of his shoulders; the way he hugs her just a little longer when she goes to leave.

She's not stupid. She hears the whispers around the diner, the quiet warnings to those who enter about his mood on that particular day. She knows that Lorelai's name is always conspicuously absent from any conversations that are carried on at a normal volume. She knows her dad hasn't mentioned her in weeks. She's heard enough to sketch out a hazy picture, does her best to distract him on the days she's there with facts and projects and stories of teenage drama.

She's in the middle of one such story, rattling on the way that thirteen-year-olds do, as if they have the wisdom of all ages, the day that everything changes.

"…and Marcy thinks her boyfriend, Tyler, is _such_ a hottie, but's really he's a jerk. He barely hangs out with her at all. He hates it when she talks to his mom or his brother and he never wants her to hang out with him and his friends. So that's _obviously_ not going to last long. _Every_ woman knows that if a guy doesn't want you to get to get to know the important people in his life, he's _obviously_ not planning to keep you around very long. We keep telling her to ditch him and find someone better, but she won't listen yet. I never understood why a girl would want to be with a guy who would treat her like that. Have a little _dignity_ , right? Jacob says that—" She stops mid-sentence as Luke freezes and his eyes widen.

"Dad! Dad!" She has to wave her hand in front of his face to get his attention. "Are you okay?"

He turns his gaze back to her and tries to look nonchalant. "Sorry. Got distracted. What was that you just said?"

"About Marcy and Tyler? That he's obviously not going to keep her around long? That she should dump him and move on?"

His only reply is to mumble something about checking on orders in the kitchen.

After that day, it's different. She thinks it's worse. The anger, hard as he tried to hide it from her, had been an energy, driving him, centering him, sustaining him. After that, the anger loses its potency. Angry, focused Luke is replaced by bleak, guilty Luke. He tries to not let her see, but suddenly his energy and his focus are just gone.

Jess turns up ten days into Bleak Luke.

"Jess?" She works up the nerve to question him the day after he arrives, while she waits for her mom to pick her up: "Do you think my dad's going to be okay?"

* * *

 _AN: Many thanks for the reviews- they really do make me write and want to get things posted faster! :)_

 _To clarify things for a couple of readers: everything that happening in "Partings," and in season six as a whole, happened in this universe. Furthermore, everything that happened between Luke and Lorelai the next day (7x01, "The Long Morrow"), also happened here. Anything after that day is fair game. Chapter one takes place just over three weeks post-breakup and this chapter, jumping back ten days, is a little less than two weeks post-breakup. Luke knows everything that happened. Rory, by this point, also knows everything that happened._


	3. That Lucky Day

_June, 2006_

Jess pops in and out of the diner the next day and, to the uninformed, Luke seems nearly normal, though his food is significantly sub-par and he's decidedly distracted. He is grumpy, has a low tolerance for anyone's crap and a short fuse with Taylor. He shuffles through his day as he always has. It's when they return to the apartment that night that Jess sees him quietly falling apart again. He has cleaned up all the beer bottles and must've taken them to the recycling center in hopes that Jess will forget what he saw. He putts around the apartment shuffling and putting away things. He watches the game and runs downstairs to the diner to prep something for tomorrow. When he comes back upstairs, he sits on the couch in front of the television that's playing the late night sports commentary that he's always hated. It's around then when Jess realizes that he's trying to avoid going to bed, that the coach looks for more lived on than it ever had before; there's a pillow on one end and an one more blanket than there ever was before. He wonders how long it's been since Luke has slept in his own bed.

* * *

Jess waits 'til the next evening after they close the diner to give him the package that Rory had handed him, spending the days in between debating whether he should actually give it to him or just give it back to Rory and make her do it herself.

He finally drops then envelope on the diner counter as Luke is finishing the final wipe down.

"Rory asked me to give these to you."

He watches as Luke opens the top, stares down at the velvet box and a string of pearls.

"Did she say anything?" He asks.

"Nothing that you probably want to hear repeated," Jess answers honestly.

"What did she say?" Luke demands wearily.

"She said you have your own family now, you obviously don't want to be a part of theirs anymore."

He watches as Luke turns abruptly away, his knuckles white around the now-crumpled envelope.

"Today. Of course. Today."

Jess watches as Luke reaches one hand out and tears the calendar off the wall and hurls it into the kitchen trash can. Then he turns and stalks out of the diner without another word.

He's not quite sure what June 3rd ever did to his uncle, but whatever it is appears to be unforgivable.

* * *

Jess is not surprised when the apartment phone rings at a quarter past one that night and Kevin Casey's matter-of-fact voice is on the other end.

"Jess? I heard you were back in town. This is Kevin over at KC's. Your uncle is here. He could use some help getting home."

Luke is staring blankly at the liquor bottles lining the wall behind the bar when Jess arrives and nudges his shoulder under Luke's arm. Kevin gives them a sympathetic smile and assures Jess that Luke's tab is taken care of: "Not surprised to see him here tonight. It's good that you're here."

As he drags Luke out and pours him into the passenger seat, Jess considers whether Kevin might possibly be the first person in Stars Hollow to ever express a positive opinion about his presence in town.

Luke is silent for the short drive around the block back to the diner until they pull to a stop in the alley. When he speaks, Jess is still not completely sure Luke is talking to him and not to the air.

"You know where I'm s'posed to be right now?" He mumbles to the windshield, "s'pose to be leavin' for my honeymoon. S'posed to get married today. S'pose to have a wife. S'posed to have a Lorelai wife." He is silent for a moment as Jess tries to process that information.

"June third. The perfect day, such a lucky day," Luke mimics. His next sentence is full of expletives Jess has never heard from his uncle before, all describing Luke's thoughts on the luck of that particular day.

There is a long silence again while Jess waits and Luke stares out into the darkness. Finally, Jess marches around to the passenger side and shoulders Luke's weight again to walk him through the door and up the long flight of stairs and drop him into bed.

Later, he will return downstairs to take care of the ring box and the necklace still sitting on the counter.

* * *

 _AN: I think we've seen in the show that Luke does not do things by halves—especially when it comes to owning his mistakes. When he feels he's made a mistake or failed somehow, he shoulders all the blame and guilt for that—far above and beyond what is actually his responsibility. I say this to clarify that my purpose here is not portray Luke as being to blame everything that went wrong and absolve Lorelai of her part. This is just how I see Luke himself responding; when he takes responsibility, he takes it hard._

 _This won't be entirely Jess' perspective. Rory and Lorelai are coming. In my head, it just all started with these first couple days with Luke after Jess' arrival._


	4. Silent Should-Have-Beens

_June 3, 2006_

Rory wakes to the sound of rustling in the kitchen just after 6AM. This day has been hanging like a silent dark cloud over them the whole week. Rory knows she's not the only one whose thoughts drift to the _should-haves_ at random times throughout the week. Yesterday it was, _We should have been at the rehearsal right now_ and then, just before bed, _I should be kicking Luke out for the night_ _._ Each day previous had come with its own _should-haves_ and, by Saturday, they had worn Rory thin. She is left to guess what they've done to her mom. For all of their years of open communication, this is one thing her mother doesn't talk about.

They've filled the void of what should have been with late-night movie marathons and trips to the mall and every restaurant they frequent within a fifteen mile radius. All except one. Rory has abided by Lorelai's silent decision to not talk about this week, but she knows the diversions are not going to be enough today. She's been carefully plotting things to fill this day for weeks now. She just hadn't expected it to start quite this early.

Lorelai has her head in the bottom of the refrigerator when Rory steps out of her room, and for once it's not because she's hunting down food. The contents of the refrigerator are in piles around her, and she has a dishcloth in hand and a pan of soapy water next to her.

"Does someone want to tell me why the maid had to start her Saturday chores before the sun is fully up? Can't kitchen duties wait until I'm finished my beauty sleep?"

Lorelai glances up over her shoulder. "I went to get creamer for my coffee and the container I opened was growing something purple. I took that as a sign that it was time to do a little refrigerator reconnaissance and dispose of any science experiments growing in our fridge."

Rory chooses not to comment on the fact that Lorelai has finished most of a pot of coffee already when clock has just barely chimed six on a Saturday morning, or that her mother has never voluntarily cleaned the fridge before—just like she chose not to comment on the fact that Lorelai used to drink her coffee straight and now there are seven different outrageously flavored creamers living in the fridge on any given day. A glance at the fridge contents on the floor next to Lorelai tells her that the tally has now jumped to eight.

It isn't until she sees Lorelai's hand freeze over a jar of pesto that she realizes that the back corners of the fridge are the only places that had escaped the Luke Purge. Rory watches the pesto, a bottle of vinaigrette, a yogurt container, and a molding container of hummus rapidly disappear into the trashcan.

Rory pours her own coffee as Lorelai hurriedly throws another dozen moldering items into the garbage on top of the offending items and then makes a final swipe with the cloth before haphazardly returning the rest to the shelves.

"Mom?"

Lorelai _hmmms_ in response as she dumps the pan of water in the sink and scrubs it out. Manic energy radiates from her.

"Don't you think that we should… acknowledge today? Ignoring it isn't going to just make it go away. What happened to wallowing? I can't think of a better day to wallow than today."

Lorelai taps the water from the pan and lays it in the rack to dry.

"We are not ignoring it. The day has been acknowledged. Today is June third. Today is the day that I am not getting married. Which, come to think of it, is exactly like every other day, both before and after June third. No wallowing needed."

"You don't know the future. Someday, maybe…" Rory trails off, not sure if she's trying to encourage her mother to move on or to hold on.

For a moment, Lorelai's thin face loses the manic light and softens.

"Aw, hon. Luke was it. Just because it didn't work doesn't change that." She smiles sadly at Rory. "Luke's always going to be it."

"But someday, he might—"

"Rory. No. I made sure that. Luke's never…" she trails off. "And he shouldn't. After what I did, he has every right to never speak to me again. It's just you and me from here on out, kid."

"Like 'Grey Gardens'?" Rory jokes halfheartedly.

"I'm Edith, you're Edie, obviously. The world just can't handle us. Think they'll make a movie about us someday?"

Rory just stands to wrap her arms around her mother.

"I wanted Luke to be part of our family."

Her mother holds her tighter.

"Luke just… found something else that he wanted."

"He was supposed to want us," Rory allows herself to murmur.

Lorelai's face crumples. It lasts only a second before she turns abruptly and tosses back the remainder of her coffee, moving on as if the topic had never been raised.

"I'm going in to the Dragonfly. We're all hands on deck today and people will be arriving any time to start setup. I'll probably be there 'til late helping with cleanup, so don't wait up."

Rory's heart sinks. There is a wedding at the Dragonfly today. A wedding on this perfect, bright June day with the sun shining and the spring flowers blooming. It's a day made for weddings, and Lorelai is going to go to work and throw one for someone else. Rory knows instinctively that it is simultaneously her way of proving that she can handle this day and of punishing herself.

* * *

She waits up. She's lying on the couch with a book in hand when the door opens after midnight and Lorelai's form appears. She sees her lean back against the door as a couple of silent sobs shake her shoulders, but she knows that this is something Lorelai will not let her see. If she shows her face, Lorelai will put on her brave face again and lie and tell her that everything is fine. It's what she does all the time now, and Rory has taken to stepping back to allow her her private tears.

Instead, she waits as Lorelai trudges up the stairs. She holds off for the few moments it takes for there to be silence from above, and then she creeps up the stairs. Standing outside her mom's door, she listens to the tears as she has numerous times in recent weeks. Tonight, instead of turning away, she pushes open the door and steps inside. Lorelai is facing away from her, shoulders shaking, wrapped around a soft scrap of blue. Silently, she climbs in behind her and wraps her arms around her mother, holding her while she cries for all the things that aren't.

* * *

 _AN: Many thanks to Nancy, DSLeo, ShadowXMoonight, and several guests for stopping in to leave your thoughts on this piece. You make the writing process worthwhile and the inspiration come more quickly._

 _I know these are short chapters; for the purposes of this story, I like them that way. However, I will try to make up for their shortness by posting as frequently as possible. I'm shooting for twice a week, and it looks like this is expanding to probably eight chapters rather than the six I originally thought it would be._


	5. Breath and Hope

Chapter 5: Breath and Hope

* * *

June 4, 2006

When Jess storms up the drive this time, it is daughter, not mother, that he's coming for. Luckily, she's on the porch swing, book in hand, and there is no need to resort to more yelling. She looks at him blankly.

He stomps to the top of the steps and levels a glare at her.

"Tell me what happened."

Rory closes the book and then closes her eyes. This is the last story she wants to be tasked to tell.

"Can't you ask someone else?"

"I'm sure as hell not going to ask Patty for her version, and no way is Luke going to tell me, so it's your turn. What the hell is going on? Last I heard everything was hunky dory."

"You mean last you heard, Luke was _pretending_ everything was _hunky dory._ "

"What's that supposed to mean?"

It all spills out then—the things she had observed herself, the things she'd heard from others in town, the things her mother had finally told her in the aftermath of the end. She tells him everything she knows, in all its bitterness and gory details. Jess' face runs a gamut of emotions as the story progresses: disbelief and fury hold the top slots for a while, but somehow understanding and resignation eventually win the day.

Rory sighs. "I'm not saying my mom made good choices. What she did was stupid and wrong and I was angry with her about it, too. But you didn't have to see her those last few months. You didn't have to watch Luke ignore her falling apart.

"Luke's always been the one to fix things. I don't think any of us knew how to react when he was the one breaking them. We all saw it happening, but I think we just kept thinking he'd realize or mom would make him see. But they didn't. And it all just exploded. I know it's not all Luke's fault. But my mom tried to be patient and do what he needed and not be hurt. She just … gave up at the end."

Jess is silent for a long time, a muscle in his jaw working back and forth.

Finally, abruptly, he speaks: "Let's do something."

The blank look returns to Rory's face: "What?"

"You said everybody saw what was happening but didn't do anything to fix it. So let's fix it now. We didn't before, but let's do it now."

Rory is both surprised and not to hear such an idea come from Jess' mouth. He's never been one to poke his nose in other people's business. But she also knows he cares about Luke a lot more than he will admit out loud. He must see the play of emotions across her face, because grudging words come out in explanation.

"I know your mom and I aren't exactly each other's biggest fan. And right now I can't say that I really want to ever see her again. But I owe Luke. And what Luke wants is Lorelai. That's always been true. He may be stupid about it sometimes, but we both know that's still true."

"I'm not..." Rory hesitates, unsure, then continues. "I'm not sure I know that anymore."

That, more than anything tells Jess just how bad Rory thinks it has been, that she, who has always been Luke's defender and advocate would question the one thing that Jess has never doubted about him shakes him to the core.

"You haven't seen him lately. Sure, Luke has his stupid moments, but trust me, Luke still wants Lorelai."

"My mom doesn't think he'll ever forgive her. She doesn't even think he should."

Jess, who has been making careful, silent study of Luke the last several days, considers her words, reconciles in his mind what he now knows with what he's seen and heard of Luke the last seventy-some hours.

"I think he already did. Trust me, I've seen Angry Luke. We're not looking at Angry Luke, at least not anymore. I bet he was for a while, but right now, he just acts like he's blaming himself for something. No one does that quite like Luke."

"You honestly think it can still be fixed?"

Rory watches Jess, wary and afraid to hope. The emotions have run high at their last meetings, but she knows that despite the fact that there is plenty of anger to go around, despite the words they've spat and the volume they've reached, they're not really angry at each other, not anymore. She thinks maybe she's found a worthy ally. She begins to think maybe, just maybe, there is hope.

Jess thinks of Luke, shiftless and lost and guilty. He thinks of Lorelai, fragile and vacant and polite.

What finally comes out of his mouth is a reminder to Rory that whatever has happened between them and between their parental figures, she is looking at a kindred spirit.

" _Dum spiro, spero,"_ he quotes with a lopsided grin.

Her face lights in a grin and his follows soon after. She moves over to make space for him on the swing.

"Well then, let's do it."

* * *

 _AN:_ _Loosely translated,_ dum spiro, spero _means "While there is breath, there is hope." (More literally translated, it's really "While I breathe, I hope" but I like the more general translation in the English.)_

 _I've been having a hard time finding the motivation and inspiration to write lately, but the next chapter is largely done, and after that, we're in the home stretch. Hopefully the end being so near will help push me to get it finished up. Many thanks to Nancy for the detailed reviews that help push me along to get the next part done._


	6. Intervention

Chapter 6: Intervention

* * *

 _June 6, 2006_

It's the space of a dozen deep breaths before Rory brings herself to swing open the door to the diner and step inside. She hasn't been there since the breakup for a variety of reasons: solidarity with her mother and avoiding the gossip mill are two of the biggest, but she has her own issues with walking through this door. But, this is the agreement that she and Jess came to: she's in charge of Luke, he's in charge of Lorelai. Heaven knows they haven't been very successful the other way around, and she has her own share of things she needs to say to Luke.

The diner is empty, half the lights turned off, and Luke's voice is perhaps more surly than usual as it comes from the kitchen when he hears the now-unusual ring of the bells after closing time: "We're closed."

She neither speaks nor leaves until he emerges from the kitchen door, cloth in hand

"I'm angry with you." Rory doesn't start with a preamble of any kind. "I'm angry because you're a hypocrite and don't even see it. I'm angry at you because you hurt my mom, and I'm angry because you were supposed to be my stepdad and then you just weren't and you didn't even care, and I'm angry at you because you were supposed to be the one that fixes things and then you broke them.

"I'm angry at you because you were supposed to be our family and you just quit."

Luke has dropped his hands to lean on the counter and now his head hangs to stare at them.

"Can we go upstairs?" is all he says as he glances up at her.

Silently, she turns and leads the way up the familiar staircase. In the living room, Luke awkwardly gestures for her to sit down, but she opts to remain standing, arms folded as he sinks to the couch. She turns to face him, stares him down.

"I know what happened. I know more than I ever wanted to know. And I know that you're probably angry at my mom, and I know you have a right to be. I was angry at her, too. But I don't get to be angry at her anymore because she's my mom and I'm all she has now. And because I get it. Because I know you do stupid things when you think you've lost the things you want the most.

"She made a stupid choice, and she regrets it more than anything. And maybe she should have tried harder to tell you how she was feeling, but you haven't exactly been paying attention lately."

"I get it, Rory. I know. I was stupid and I got confused and distracted and… well, stupid." Luke tells her.

"You know?"

"I know."

"Since when? Because you were doing a pretty good job there of being oblivious."

"April…" he trails off and winces as Rory's face goes hard. "She just said some things a couple weeks ago and suddenly I could see… everything." Rory's scowl softens as she realizes that he is not making April an excuse again. "She didn't even mean to, she just was rambling on and suddenly I saw everything I did the way it looked to Lorelai." Luke groans and lays his head against the back of the sofa where he sits. "Jeez. My thirteen-year-old knows more about relationships than I do."

Rory snorts. "That seems like a distinct possibility." The anger than had sustained her through the door has faded some, but it comes back for one more jab.

"I didn't mean for any of it to happen, Rory," he admits. "I didn't mean to hurt your mom or to make you think I forgot you or make either of you think that I didn't want to be your family anymore.

I'm sorry." Reaching out, he lays a hand on her arm. She lets it rest there a moment before shrugging it off.

"How's…" he trails off and then tries again. "How's your mom?"

Rory just shakes her head. "You don't get to ask me that."

She's not there to be a go-between, to ease his conscience or inflate his ego, and she is by no means sure that her mom would be happy with her sharing anything with him.

He just nods, not disagreeing, so she moves on.

"Mom thinks you're angry at her. Are you still angry?"

Luke hangs his head again and shakes it: "No. I was. Not anymore."

"Are you going to forgive her?"

Luke smiles wryly: "Already done. It's me I'm working on now."

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you still want my mom?"

"Yes. But things aren't just that simple, Rory. For one thing, I'm not sure your mom would want me back."

"My mom's pretty good at forgiving people and not holding stupid stuff against them. I'm speaking from experience here."

She stands and moves to the door, confident at least that Luke has heard what she came to say. At the door, she turns back to him.

"I came here to tell you that you don't get unlimited chances, but you probably have one more."

* * *

"Hey Sweets," Lorelai calls from the couch when Rory closes the door to the Crap Shack. "Where have you been?"

Rory waits until she is seated next to her mother before answering: "Luke's."

Beside her, she can feel Lorelai stiffen, but she feigns lightheartedness. "Second dinner?"

"No. I needed to talk to Luke." When Lorelai doesn't respond, she continues. "You live in the same town, Mom. You have to face it eventually. Neither of you is anywhere near over this, and it's time you face up to it and deal with it and figure out what happens next. Isn't that what you told me to do?"

After a minute of stony silence, Rory sidles closer to Lorelai's stiff form and lays her head on her mother's shoulder.

"Luke says to tell you he's sorry."


	7. Things We Deserve

_AN: Many, many apologies to any of you out there who still remember that this story exists and have been waiting for updates. In between the last posting and now I was travelling, started a new job, packed and moved while getting settled into said new job, and then helped my brother renovate a house and move into it. I really thought I was going to be able to write while doing all those things, but they took more mental and physical energy than I was anticipating. I never forgot about this story, though it's been slow going getting back into the writing of it. Thanks for your patience and your reminders that people were waiting on this._

 _A quick recap of the previous chapters:_

 _April's pre-teen ramblings led Luke to a better understanding of his part in the disastrous end of his relationship with Lorelai, and from there out of anger into a downward spiral of guilt. Jess arrived back in Stars Hollow to a radically altered Luke, just in time for June 3rd – and one particular delivery on that very day—to wreak even more havoc on Luke's equilibrium. Rory unsuccessfully tried to draw Lorelai out of her guilt and false bravado, but Lorelai chose to face June 3rd alone. Jess and Rory's reunion got off to a rocky start, but they found common ground again in the desire to help their parental figures heal and they came up with a plan to try to force Luke and Lorelai to confront their problems and each other. Rory confronted Luke with her own bitterness and anger over the end of his relationship with Lorelai and the two came to a tentative understanding._

* * *

 _June 7, 2006_

It had shocked more than a few people when Jess had the guys in Philly send him all the work he could do remotely and had taken over his old room above the diner for a more extended visit than he had originally planned. He spends his days with one eye on his work and the other on Luke's moods and his alcohol consumption. He can't work this way forever, but it will work for a little while—long enough, hopefully, to see Luke into a better frame of mind. Whether it will be long enough to see any fruit from his and Rory's plan remains to be seen. It's a bare-bones plan, not a long complex scheme. Just enough, they hope, to get them to start a conversation. From there, it'll be up to Luke and Lorelai.

If Luke has guessed that Jess' sudden desire to remain in Stars Hollow is on his behalf, he hasn't commented on it.

Early Wednesday evening, nearly a full week after his arrival, finds Jess trudging up the steps and reluctantly knocking on the Crap Shack's door again. This is not an errand he relishes, but it's his responsibility, and he's anxious to get it out of the way, anxious to see if it will do any good.

"Rory's not here," Lorelai tells him when she opens the door, that brittle, polite smile in place again. "She just went out."

He knows this already, had helped orchestrate that very fact. He looks her straight in the eye.

"I'm not here to see Rory, I'm here to talk to you."

A startled look passes over the face that has worn a carefully-controlled mask ever since she opened the door.

"Well," she falters, "come in, I guess," she says, opening the door wider and sweeping an arm to usher him in.

He comes in but doesn't sit, notices that the house seems cleaner than he remembers it, wonders if that means anything. Lorelai doesn't sit either, but stands with her eyes shifting from bookcase to door to couch to tv— in short, to everything but him.

"Look," he begins, forcing her to look him in the eye, "I don't think it's any secret that we're not crazy about each other."

Her mouth moves as if to protest, but it closes at his level look.

"You don't like me much, and frankly, there are plenty of people I'd prefer to hang out with, especially now."

He watches as the curiosity on her face crumples at his last words, and then the mask reappears. Despite what everyone else here may think, he has never relished hurting people. But he and Rory had agreed on this: subtlety and sympathy had done no good. It was time to try the harsher, more honest, more direct approach.

"You don't have to like me, but today you do have to listen to me."

She nods in acquiescence and they stare at each other for a moment, tired blue eyes meeting fierce brown, before he barrels on.

"Are you happy, Lorelai?" He starts abruptly, "Because you don't seem happy to me."

Lorelai's eyes shift away from him and he wonders if he imagined the water that pooled in them before she looked away. He ignores it.

"And my uncle? He's miserable." He says plainly.

He watches her as he says it, sees the almost imperceptive tightening of her jaw, the way she blinks a little faster to clear the extra moisture from her dull eyes.

"The thing is, I'm pretty sure you're both miserable for the same reason, which makes it a stupid reason, because you both have the power to fix things for yourselves and you're just too blind to or too stubborn to do anything about it.

"You're sitting around here wallowing because you don't think he'll ever forgive you. He's sitting over there wallowing because he thinks he made such a big mistake that you'll never take him back. Frankly, I don't care if you think you deserve to be forgiven. What I do know is that Luke deserves to be happy, and if that means being with you, then that's what he should get."

They stand for long moments. Lorelai is uncharacteristically silent, with wide, shocked eyes staring back at him. When he speaks, his voice is a little gentler.

"You tried to tell me once that we had a lot in common. I didn't want to listen, but you were right. Only, it's not what you thought it was."

He sees the curiosity flare in her eyes again. She wears a careful, neutral façade, but if you look closely enough you can see through the cracks. She's dying to hear more of whatever he's going to say.

"Luke loves us." He stumbles over the word, not used to having to speak it. "Even if we're stupid and hateful and hurt him. I haven't quite figured out yet how he keeps on doing it, but he does."

Lorelai's mouth opens as if to protest, but he preempts her objection.

"He's pretty good at forgiving your stupid mistakes. I should know. Liz and I have given him enough opportunities."

He turns to ready himself to go, aware that Lorelai is still oddly silent. He turns back as he opens the door.

"I didn't come here today to bond over our commonalities. I came here today because I owe Luke. Yeah, you hurt him, but I'm pretty sure you still have the power to fix him, and he deserves to be happy. If you won't give it a shot for yourself, then do it because Luke deserves it."

His piece said, he turns to go. He's almost out the door when Lorelai's rusty voice finally catches up to him.

"Jess?"

"Yeah?"

Her face appears in the space of the half open door. "It's true, I didn't care for you much for a while there, but I think you've turned out pretty good."

He turns away again, throwing his reply over his shoulder as he starts for the porch steps.

"Yeah, well, blame Luke. I'm pretty sure it's his fault."

* * *

Jess slams the door when he arrives back at the apartment, more out of a desire for a reaction from Luke than for any other reason. What once would have earned him a sharp reprimand receives only an unintelligible grunt. His next attempts at conversation receive the same response.

In at least one respect, Jess is more like Luke than he realizes—they both have a low tolerance for things they consider stupid, and the current situation has made Jess' list of Very Stupid Things. At the fourth grunt, he strides over to face his uncle head on.

"You think I don't get it?" Jess asks him. "You think I don't know what it's like to love a Gilmore girl and then lose her through your own stupid choices? The thing is, yours still wants you. You've still got a chance, and you're too busy feeling guilty to just man up and take it. So she made a stupid choice. If that made you stop wanting her, you sure wouldn't still be acting like this. From the sounds of it, you made plenty of your own stupid choices, and she apparently still wants you. At this point, you're both just being stupid. Go have your fight. We all know there'll be one. Just get it over with and move on."

Jess leaves his words hanging in the air and stomps to his room, just for old time's sake.


	8. Observe and Report

June 9, 2006

Rory appears in the diner door that Friday evening just after dinner time, eyes wide and lips drawn in, as if holding in a secret.

"Luke's at the house," she says quietly as she draws a stool up to the counter and Jess leans over it to catch her whisper.

"He came in and they stared at each other for a minute and I left. I waited outside, just to see if Mom needed me, for a few minutes. There was no yelling—none that I could hear anyway—and he didn't come back out, so I came here."

Jess stands and dusts off his hands, relieved to hear that, hopefully, no further input we be required from him in order to salvage Luke's love life.

"Well, that means it's out of our hands now. Whatever happens now is on them."

More than an hour later, Jess and Rory have moved to a table near the counter. Closing is officially still almost an hour away, but Jess has already finished preparations and there hasn't been a customer in a quarter of an hour when they catch sight of Luke striding back down the street toward the diner. Jess raises his eyebrows at Rory from across the table where they sit as Luke swings the door open. The clang of the bell sounds almost harsh in the evening stillness.

Luke says nothing, but his eyes are red and maybe still a little bit watery. His movements are abrupt, but, Jess thinks—hopes— not angry or upset. When he reaches them, he just lays a hand on Rory's shoulder and squeezes gently before he reaches over to grab Jess by the back of the neck and pull him to his feet. Jess finds himself crushed in Luke's arms for the space of two pats on the back before he is dropped unceremoniously back into his seat and Luke heads for the kitchen.

When Jess gets his bearings, Rory is grinning delightedly at him—whether from Luke's obviously good mood or from seeing Jess get mauled, he is not sure. He can't help but grin back. Pans start happily clanging in the kitchen as a couple of high-schoolers make their entrance and claim a table at the back.

An hour later, after the two newcomers and a few others have come and gone, Jess has just flipped the sign to _closed_ and returned to his seat just a smidge too close to Rory when the bell rings again.

Lorelai makes her way to the counter with a nervous smile at Rory and Jess and inhales a deep breath as she climbs up on the stool by the register. Luke, exiting the kitchen with clean mugs in hand to put away, halts mid-stride as his eyes catch the stool's new occupant. He bites back a nervous half smile as he unconsciously surrenders the mugs to Jess, who has suddenly materialized at his side and taken the stack from a Luke who seems barely cognizant of what he's doing.

Rory and Jess watch as he stops in front of Lorelai, pad in hand and a small smile on his lips.

"What'll you have?"

Lorelai meets his eyes over the counter and offers a tentative smile of her own.

"Coffee, please."

* * *

 _AN: I realize this may seem incomplete, but it was never meant to be really_ complete _—it's just a beginning. My intent for was for this fic to be entirely from the perspectives of Jess and Rory (and April), and from here on out, things are in firmly in Luke and Lorelai's hands. There's a snippet of an epilogue floating around in my head that may come to fruition someday, but as of now I am marking this as complete. Many thanks to those of you who have taken the time to stop in and leave a review—they're much appreciated._


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